EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE AND I WANT TO SLEEP FOR AT LEAST TWO WEEKS.

I’m excited to say my second collection of poetry, Hero Victim Villain, will be released on June 24th from Stubborn Mule Press.

This collection is mostly an accumulation of poems that I wrote late 2017 to early 2019. The first poem in the collection, The Canary Who Swallowed The Coal Mine, kind of set the tone. I say in the poem “everything is on fire, and I want to sleep for at least two weeks.” The poem goes on to basically explain how everything is on fire, a commentary on my own anxieties and paranoia and feelings of helplessness, the way I can play the victim at times.

My friend Brandon Pooley calls it the poet’s disease. The way that some creatives will be self-destructive ultimately in the name of art. Something I want to get away from. I think that art is born out of self-discovery. Yeah, if you’re going through some hard shit you are possibly growing as a person, but it doesn’t have to be hard shit. Go on a trip, walk backwards to the grocery store, change jobs. I think what’s better than drinking yourself into a coma every night is pushing yourself out of your comfort zone by pushing yourself to be more. Henry Rollins says it well:

“If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don’t show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents, out-learn them, outlive them, and know more than they do.”

The book goes on to explore these themes more. Savior complexes, the monsters we are and the monsters among us, all with a healthy dose of humor. I’m really excited about this collection. I hope to stop by the blog a bit more over the next couple months with more short writings, but thank you for reading. I hope that not everything is on fire for you.

---

photo: henry desroches